Greater New Orleans

Venezuela citizens wave the country's flag on Convention Center Blvd. while cheering on voters at the New Orleans Ernest Morial Convention Center, in New Orleans, Sunday, Oct. 7, 2012. Voters traveled from Florida, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi to voting area for the Venezuelan national election which is being overseen by the Venezuelan Consulate.
(Photo by Matthew Hinton, NOLA.com / The Times-Picayune)
(Photo by Matthew Hinton, Staff photographer)

Midway through Sunday, about 800 expatriate voters of Venezuela each hour were casting ballots for the country's presidential election at New Orleans' Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. The polls opened at 6 a.m., and officials subsequently estimated that 8,000 Venezuelan expats living in the southern United States would vote at the convention center.

That was in spite of a wait time of 2 ½ hours or so for parts of the day, said Anselmo Rodriguez, local campaign director for candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski, the opponent to incumbent president Hugo Chavez. "It's a Venezuelan Mardi Gras for freedom and democracy," joked Rodriguez, referring to the scene outside of the Convention Center, which was highlighted by waving national flags and constant chants of, "Venezuela! Venezuela!"

Most of those voters traveled to New Orleans by airplane, bus or car from Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. They had originally registered to vote at the Venezuelan consulate in Miami.

But Venezuela shut that facility down in January after State Department officials expelled the consul, who was suspected in an Iranian cyber-attack conspiracy against the U.S. officials in Venezuela then sent any expats scheduled to vote in Miami to the nearest consulate in operation on election day: the one in New Orleans, more than 860 miles away.

Before its closure, the Miami consulate was prepared to serve 20,000 voters in the region where the largest concentration outside of the home country is. Meanwhile, the New Orleans consulate was expecting to handle a much smaller load of registered expatriate voters of Venezuela: about 640 residing in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee.

Not every expat who voted on Sunday had to travel as far as the ones in the Miami consulate's jurisdiction. Valentina Franquiz, 38, made the short drive from Baton Rouge, a fact she announced on a handmade sign with letters in yellow, blue and red, the colors of Venezuela's flag.

Franquiz said she was proud of her compatriots who traveled so far -- who sacrificed time and dollars -- to exercise their right to vote in the presidential election. "It was a great effort," she said. "We are making history today."

It is predicted that the vast majority of people voting in New Orleans back Capriles, the popular ex-governor of Venezuela's second-largest state, Miranda. Many of those voters left Venezuela because of political reasons and loathe Chavez, who has been in office since 1999.

Capriles supporters say Chavez has failed to solve persistent problems such as a staggering murder rate, periodic electricity blackouts and poorly-equipped hospitals. Chavez's camp counters that he has supported social programs benefiting the poor with Venezuela's oil wealth.

Venezuela Vote at the Convention CenterA Venezuelan citizen living in Atlanta, Vincenzina Adrianza, talks about voting at the New Orleans Ernest Morial Convention Center, in New Orleans, Sunday, Oct. 7, 2012. Voters traveled from Florida, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi to voting area for the Venezuelan national election which is being overseen by the Venezuelan Consulate.